There is something intriguing to me about the weather. Maybe it’s because I have utterly no control over it as it can thrust me into the at-risk position where I must ride alone through a maize unbridled event. The anticipation and not knowing what will happen next as a storm cloud approaches produces an adrenaline rush not unlike a white water canoe adventure where I must fend for myself as a deadly waterfall lurks somewhere ahead in a violent uncharted river. So far, I have survived every rapid, and avoided the waterfalls, and I witnessed the return of blue and tranquil skies as the storm moved out of the Magnolia State and on to our neighboring state of Alabama.
Weather is entity unto itself with a complex personality, and mind of its own. You can’t change it or predict it with any absolute certainty. What you see is what you get, making it one of life’s inescapable truths. That leaves me no choice but to deal with its constantly changing moods, day-by-day or sometimes moment-by-moment.
The weather can reach into the deepest crevices of our emotions and minds. It can arouse every feeling from an enchanting state of joy to the deepest pits of depression. Ideal weather brings wealth and an abundant harvest, but then it can turn on us like a wild animal we were tricked into believing to be domesticated and well trained.
Nothing can be more swift or deadly than a sudden thunderstorm emerging from what seemed like a perfectly calm blue sky. On the other hand, what could be more therapeutic than a warm spring day after a long cold winter or the relief a cool rain brings on a scorching August afternoon in Mississippi? Weather affects everything from t-ball games to The World Series and from flying a kite to the space shuttle launch. If we only knew what the weather was going to do at any given moment it would make life much simpler, but then, that would take all the excitement out of it.
Even with today’s technology and gadgets at their disposal the weatherman sometimes gets your “local forecast wrong”. Old timers had all sorts of ways of predicting the weather and some of them are quite accurate, while other methods are a bit questionable. Folk legend has it that you can predict what kind of winter we will have by how thick the shucks are on the corn. I’m not sure just how the corn stalks know when to wrap their ears a little tighter but who am I to second-guess Mother Nature? There must be something to it. There has never been a grits shortage in this country, not in my lifetime anyway.
It has been my observation that folks take their homegrown weather forecasting methods seriously. Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Joe believed that as long as his guineas roosted in the pecan tree the weather would be clear that night, but if they roosted in the barn it was a sure sign of rain. That made sense. Even guineas have brains enough to get in out of the rain. More than I can say for some people!
My Uncle John, bless his heart, just couldn’t get it right with the weather, he never figured it out. Uncle John thought he was the world’s best at spotting snow clouds, and in his own right he probably was. The poor fellow lived in a constant state of bewilderment all because of his erroneous weather forecasts. Uncle John’s forecasting problem was that he was a Yankee. Nothing against Yankees, it’s just that Yankees don’t know any more about Southern weather than I do Northern weather. January rain clouds in these parts can easily be mistaken for snow clouds to our kinfolks from other side of the Mason/Dixon Line. It’s too bad for him that he was still living in Connecticut in nineteen sixty-three when a freak northerner brought us eighteen inches of the white stuff. Poor Uncle John missed his one chance to get it right.
Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies, along with her many other skills was a great meteorologist. She kept her pet cricket in a penny matchbox. When the little fellow rolled over on his back, Granny dispensed with the soap making out by the cement pond and headed for the house because rain was surely on the way. Jethro never had the nerve to challenge her on it, but I have a couple of problems with Granny’s system. Not that I doubt the accuracy of her technology. I’m sure Granny’s cricket was just as accurate as Mr. Joe’s guineas. It’s just that I don’t have pet cricket and there is no such thing as a penny box of matches anymore. Even if I could find a penny box of matches it would seem silly to keep a pet cricket in a matchbox considering the price of fish-bait these days.
Some people believe when the horses start running around in the pasture for no apparent reason, a thunderstorm or perhaps a tornado is getting close. I don’t know how close they are talking about but if I were a horse in the pasture when the lightning started popping or a tornado were close enough to see I would be running too. It doesn’t get any more accurate than that.
Groundhog Day was something I never put much stock in, we don’t have any groundhogs here in Mississippi anyway. It’s probably a good thing for the groundhogs, considering how much we Southern folks love barbecue, regardless of the weather, or what kind of hog might be on the grill. And I ain’t about to depend on some hog watching Yankee from Pennsylvania to tell me how much winter we have left. Shucks, I knew the answer to that one way back in the summer when the roastn’ ears got ready. If Uncle John couldn’t get it right, neither could the next Yankee. Springtime will get here soon enough and with it come the dogwood blooms and thunderstorms.
The weather never scared me much, that’s not to say that I don’t respect it. I would be last person you would find flying a kite in a thunderstorm or riding out a hurricane on the Gulf Coast. But I know plenty of people who are deathly afraid bad weather. My mother was not among them. I suppose that’s where I get my attitude about the weather. The same can’t be said for all my kinfolks however.
My cousin Rabbit was one of the bravest and toughest fellows I ever knew. The former Marine feared neither man nor beast. I once saw him pick up a live snake by the tale and twirl it around like a lasso-rope. But Rabbit was only human and had his phobias like the rest of us mortals. He was a good hearted good natured sort of fellow but there were two things you didn’t want to do; make him mad or get between him and the storm cellar when the horses started running around the pasture for no apparent reason.
Weathermen are usually nice fellows and I never hold it against them when their high tech gadgets fail, or Mother Nature slips a surprise low pressure in off the Gulf throwing a monkey wrench into “your local forecast”. And who could ever turn the weather channel off just because Heather or Vivian didn’t tell us what we wanted to hear?
Of all the radars, satellites, and other gadgets in the world, none could match my daddy’s method of predicting the weather. He was the only person I ever knew who could predict rain with one hundred percent accuracy every time without exception. When asked when it would rain, he would always say, “just as soon as this dry-spell’s over”.
Ralph Gordon is a Past President Mississippi Writers Guild and a recipient of the William Faulkner Literary Award.You may contact Ralph Gordon at rgordon512@hotmail.com.
